You Carry Me, Then I Carry You
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Proverbs 17:3 tag: Sam finds an answer for Dean.


**You Carry Me, Then I Carry You**  
**K Hanna Korossy**

_What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to fight _God_?_

Sam was silent for a long minute. Dean's questions were rhetorical, but Sam's mind spun around them—God? The being he'd once asked for help, then came to believe was just absent, and now was the enemy? What could he say to that?

_The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests hearts._

He didn't even know why that Proverbs verse in particular came to him, but as it sunk in, Sam found himself slowly straightening up, the words coming without his thinking about them.

"He calls himself 'God.' That doesn't mean he is _God_."

Dean, mired in despair, huffed but didn't even look up.

Sam shook his head, the ground firming under his feet every second. "Dean, man, think about it. Couple of years ago, Chuck was staying with us because he had no place to go. He almost died. The world got bad, yeah, but we don't know for sure what woulda happened if he or Amara had kicked it."

Dean was slowly wagging his head from side to side. "Sam…"

"I mean, what do those names even mean?" Sam pressed on. "We've seen _gods _die before. We've even ended a few."

Dean tilted his head, eyes still downcast, but silent, listening.

Sam shuffled forward to the edge of his seat, closer to his brother. "Chuck says he made this world, everything, but seriously, you think he could design a cell? Or come up with the complexity of the human body? Or mycelial networks, for that matter, or a bumblebee, or a plover? _Chuck?"_

Dean was looking at him now, and frowned. "What the hell's a 'plover'?"

"Dean."

Dean sat up. "Yeah, okay, I get it. Chuck's not exactly…godlike. But he's got the power—"

"Does he?"

"—and the knowledge—"

"Dude, I had to show him how our _shower_ worked."

"—and he's been jerking us around for how long now?" Dean's voice was heavy with defeat. "Making us act out his little stories."

And there was what was really bothering Dean. When he'd had nothing else, at least he'd believed defeat or victory lay in what they did. That what they chose to do, mattered. Chuck's puppetmaster act had troubled him so much more than it had Sam, and Sam was starting to get why. What his head, his _tested heart, _had figured out before he even realized it. "Dean," he said gently, believer to drowning unbeliever. "He can't _make _us do anything."

Dean looked at him incredulously. "You were there. You saw—"

"I saw Chuck throw a temper tantrum because you didn't shoot Jack like he wanted you to." Sam paused a second, letting that sink in. "Dean, I've been seeing visions of the Mark making you kill me, of the demon blood making me kill you, of all these things we've faced before and _beat. _And, man, maybe Chuck led us to those crossroads each time, I don't know. But what I do know is, when we got there? We _chose _not to go the way he planned, _every single freakin' time. _That's why he's so ticked off at us, right? Because we're not doing what he wants. Writing the story he wants."

They just looked at each other for several beats. Sam could see the wheels starting to turn behind his brother's eyes, poking through memories, testing Sam's words. Finding them solid. Finding cause for hope.

Dean slowly straightened. "So. Maybe we've got a chance."

"And even if we lose, we're still losing on our terms." Sam's mouth curved, just a little bit. "Our kinda fight, dude."

"Okay." Dean nodded slowly, a little light in his eyes again. "Okay. We're not dead yet, right?"

Sam snorted. "Like that ever stopped us."

Dean almost smiled back. He got up, went and retrieved the good bottle of whiskey and two glasses, and set one up for each of them. He just poured a finger, a toast rather than getting toasted, and hovered a hand over one of the glasses before picking it up to tilt against Sam's. "To becoming real boys," he said, meeting Sam's gaze squarely.

Sam got the Pinocchio reference, and rejected it. "To passing the _real_ test," he said instead, clinking glasses.

They drank.

**The End**


End file.
